Security

(public)

User Story

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1
Build ID: 20120713134347
Steps to reproduce:
I typed search words in the appropriate window.
A list of mails appeared. Since default presentation is not "sorted on date" (which I nearly almost prefer) I hit "date".
I see messages listed on date and I see some of the content and the date for the message.
I hit the title of the message I would want to read.
Actual results:
In the new window where one would expect to see the content NOTHING shows.
Expected results:
The content of the chosen message should have been displayed.
My workaround is to look in the unsorted Inbox at the date of the searched for message to display it this way

I just observed this bug and can refile it with more detail. Here's what happened:
1. I sent a message to X, to which a response was expected.
2. An appropriate amount of time passed.
3. X sent a note indicating nonreceipt of the message in 1.
4. I did a global search for terms I knew I'd included in the subject line.
5. The desired message came right up near the top of the search. The subject line, sender, date, attachment, quoted text, etc. all looked right.
6. I clicked on the search result (hyperlinked header) expecting to see the message.
7. Instead, no message showed up, just an empty message list and default "Welcome to Thunderbird...why we need donations" pane in the position where the e-mail should have been. This was very concerning. I'd spent a lot of time on that message - had Thunderbird lost it?
8. I went back to the global search results tab and noted that this view does not give the location (folder) where the message was found, so I clicked "Open email as list" to try to get that information.
9. Same result as in 7; empty message list shown.
10. I logged in to a webmail view of the IMAP mailserver, and verified that the message was in the Sent folder (which is a subfolder of INBOX).
11. I then returned to Thunderbird, and clicked to view the Sent folder.
12. Thunderbird showed the Sent folder with messages up until a date prior to the day the message in question was sent.
13. After a moment, Thunderbird showed the more recently sent messages, including the one in question, in the list.
14. Returning to the global search results tab, when I clicked on the target message again, it showed the message as originally expected (i.e. different result than in 7).
15. Returning to the global search results tab, when I clicked Open Email as List, I got a message list including the target message (i.e. different result than in 9).
16. Returning to the Sent folder, I used Tools-> Run Filters on Folder to move the message to a folder designated for correspondence with X, which I thought should have been run automatically after sending. Other messages went to other folders as well, according to filter rules.
17. I repeated the global search for the same terms.
18. The target message disappeared from search results.
19. I opened the folder designated for correspondence with X.
20. At first, the target message was not there.
21. After a few moments (for communication with the IMAP server), the target message (and some others) appeared in the list, sorted in at their proper position by date (not the most recent).
22. I repeated the global search.
23. The target message appeared in the search results, but with no quoted text, even though the search terms did appear in the body of the message as well as the subject line.
24. I clicked on the search result for the target message.
25. A message list pane opened, with one message (the target), and a blank pane below.
26. After a moment (for server communication), the message loaded in the preview pane.
27. I repeated the global search, with the same result as in 23.
28. I went back to the folder view and clicked to view the target message. It loaded after a moment (for server communication).
29. I repeated the global search, again with the same results as in 23. I tried several more times but was unable to get quoted text to show up in the search results for the target message, by the time I submitted [reopened] this bug.
I've had this happen to me several times, and it's always very concerning to lose a message like that. In some cases, I was never able to find the message because I didn't know which folder it was in to explicitly check there. However, I haven't previously been able to nail it down as specifically as in this report.
It appears that what fixed the problem for Leo was not a new release or OS upgrade, but merely that his target message had been downloaded from the server on explicitly viewing the folder it was in.
It appears that there is an issue here with Thunderbird not indexing location information about where a message can be found when indexing the rest of the message, and not giving the user any error message or information about what's happened when it tries to open a search result that hasn't been downloaded from the server (nor does it just download and display the message).
I would like to at least see a Location field added (or addable by the user) to the default search results view, to aid in the workaround for this bug.

30. In the Message Filters, I opened the filter which sends correspondence with X to its designated folder.
31. I saw a new option at the top of Filter Rules under "Apply Filter when:" which said "After Sending" which was unchecked. This was new compared to the old setup in which there was one option for running all filters when a message was sent, and is disappointing to see that I'll have to go through hundreds of filters and manually make that change on each one in order to restore the functionality I had before.
32. I checked that option for this particular filter.
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33. On the message pane showing the target message, I right-clicked and chose Edit As New.
34. I prepended "Resending: " to the subject line and prepended some text to the message body (including the word "resending"). I did not change recipients and left the one attachment.
35. I sent the message. At the end of the sending, the box said it was copying the message to the folder designated for correspondence with X.
36. I looked at that folder which was already open in the main message list, and didn't see the message I'd just sent. This was concerning.
37. I did a global search for "resending" and sorted by date. The message from 35 was not there. Again, this was concerning.
38. I clicked to view another folder (not "Sent.")
39. I clicked back to view the folder I had just been viewing.
40. After a moment, the new message appeared in the message list.
41. I repeated the global search.
42. This time, the new message was in the list, but just the header information with no quoted body.
43. I went back to the message pane and clicked on the new message to show it in the preview pane.
44. As with step 29, I could not get quoted text to appear with the search result for the new message. However, repeating the search from step 29 did give quoted text.
45. I waited a bit over half an hour.
46. Repeating the global search for “resending” showed the new message including quoted text.
I would expect Thunderbird to load a message that was just sent and make it findable by search, and when a result appears in search, it will also appear when viewing search results as a list, as well as be viewable when clicking on a search result directly. If these expectations won’t be met, it’d be nice to have some warning or explanation about how to still access the message, including having the location appear in the search results list.
I hope this level of detail helps others reproduce the conditions or at least know how to look for the bug.
Also, if someone is experiencing something like this, managed to find this bug report, and needs a temporary, unintuitive workaround, try clicking through all of the e-mail folders to load new messages in each, visiting whatever folder was originally open at least twice.